The Pocket Haiku: Sam Hamill

 
Back in 2011 at the Haiku North America Conference in Seattle, poet Jerry Ball addressed a large roomful of haiku poets, practitioners, and scholars and set forth a challenge: he would present a series of quality haiku and we should determine the one element they all had in common. 

He read poem after poem after poem and the assembled audience puzzled over their commonality, themes, philosophy, subjects, bent, and allusiveness to no avail. Person after person suggested possible connections without any luck.

Turned out that Mr. Ball was at once having a bit of fun and demonstrating a valid, if decidedly unpopular concept: haiku written in English in the 5/7/5 form.

Form vs content: the eternal battle in haiku, in poetry generally, in philosophy, and, yes, in life.

Mr. Ball's demonstration, as intended, gave everyone in the room something to think about.

Sam Hamill is a well-known poet, translator and activist who has collected together in The Pocket Haiku some 200 plus of his translations of classic haiku that have long been revered by readers, fellow poets, and critics alike. As the name implies, the book is small: 3 x 4.75 inches. At this size it fits in nearly any pocket you might have, giving you the ability to carry with you the core canon of classic haiku without ever having to charge a battery or power up 'the source.'

One remarkable aspect of these translations is their general adherence to the 5/7/5 form as delineated above. There is much to be said for the work of translators such as Lucien Styrk and Robert Hass and their use of a much briefer approach in their translations, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with Hamill's approach. 

Here's a poem by Bashō, which I've probably read in any number of collections that I have no memory of. Hamill's translation is a resonant, singular work:

Come out to view
the truth of flowers blooming
in poverty 

This rendition resonates in an at once very modern and a very classical way. In this next poem, the deep truth of humanness is quietly revealed:

utter aloneness -
another great pleasure
in autumn twilight

Perhaps this is less than modern yet all the more true for that. One can feel the irony cut both ways: aloneness is thought of as alienation, yet aloneness is the very thing that may unite us all, the essence of who we are. The oneness of all things is writ large in this compact gem.

All the wonderful Issa ku are represented here. Personally, the one that is fresh and new in Mr. Hamill's rendition is:

Just to say the word
home, that one word alone
so pleasantly cool

The poet here is engaged in a full tilt sensory way. It is not often that sound and touch are the senses that connect in a synesthiesiac manner. In this poem, the connection is resonant in a deep, abiding way. 

A special delight of this collection is that, beyond the three classic haiku poets, there is a small collection of "Other Poets" of the classical school. Here, there are some less familiar gems, as in this anonymous haiku:

To learn how to die
watch cherry blossoms, observe
chrysanthemums

Here is the connection to nature, the Buddha's noble truth in action. And the deep truth of this poem, and the form itself, is easily confirmed when one thinks how the great haiku master, Shiki, spent his final years.

As I do with a great majority of books I read, I left the introduction to last. As a final example from this exemplary collection, I'll leave you with an Onitsura poem that I was happy to see Mr. Hamill chose to highlight in his intro:

True obedience:
silently the flower speaks
to the inner ear

 
This is a collection to go through again and again, as I've done and will continue to do. Whether at the bus stop, on lunch break, waiting on an appointment, concentrating full bore, I find the overall approach and execution, as in the works of Bashō and Issa, as instructive on many levels. 

For Bashō there was the Way of Haiku, for Issa Pure Land Buddhism. For Sam Hamill, in his capacity of translator in this volume, there is the task to communicate the essence and the resonance of classic haiku, its origin, its philosophy, its execution ... 

... and, its all-important universal message. And he has done just that.

This book belongs in the collection, and pocket, of every haiku aficionado. It can be purchased directly from the publisher, Shambhala, or your favorite independent bookseller. You won't regret it.


best,
Don

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Leonard J. Cirino: 1943-2012

I'm sorry to report, another fine small press poet has died: Leonard J. Cirino.  Over the years, I've published a few pieces by Leonard in Lilliput Review.  He was unique; what appealed to me about his work was a lyrical quality that displayed a fine mix of detail and philosophy, with a faintly Eastern sensibility.  Indeed, he loved the classic Eastern poets, as in the following:



The Road Going Nowhere after So Chongju

The road going somewhere always leads to an end.
Sadness, like a red blossom, also comes to an end.
The limbs of a willow bend to the stream, the moon
descends. Sorrow, an ache laced with opium, and joy
that never ends. The floating worlds go on in a dream.
What of the taste and stiff scent of blood?
Its stain? The road long coming home?

                Leonard J. Cirino   
                Lilliput Review, #176

The poet and friend of Leonard, RD Armstrong, has done a fine tribute over at the Lummox Writers' Press Club.  Check it out if you get a chance, it's a fine modern elegy.  In addition, listen to Leonard  being interviewed by RD over at Blog Talk Radio on The Jane Crown Show or via the following widget:

A couple of Leonard's poems, the first from his last book and the second, originally published in America back in 2007.


Forty Years of Nightmares
   Here the clouds are great churches – Deborah Diggs
 
Judged harshly by my enemies, I say,
Let them cast the first stone. I’ll know
the last judgement when my time comes;
with the clouds and seas as my proper
form of worship, along with the streams,
mountains, the trees and stones.
I never had to stay in the dark of my room
or stand in a corner. Life never punished me
until madness ran amok with my body,
my brain. i could have been Frida
struck by a bus, or Deborah falling,
jumping from the stadium’s heights.
Let them cast lots among the shadows like ghosts.
I know my place in the dark and the light.

    from Leonard's last book The Instrument of Others
   Pygmy Forest Press





Accept the Gift A Letter to James Wright, Deceased

Like snow, the poem breaks into petals
and crystals, sharp things like stilettos.
It is just now April, or mid-May,
the shadows of flowers lie neglected
in the garden while cedar and fir hang
lovely in the long-gone frost of March.

Why does it take some happiness
and a loneliness one can only cry for
to make these poems? I’m sorry you had
the gift. It makes for a miserable life.

How Ohio lived in you, your verse freed
and standing on its own, like a colt,
or an orphan removed from the nest
only to have its illusions shattered
in the world wide enough that you can’t
know yourself, or any part but Ohio,
and all things west, north, south, the distance
from home one calls a map of the earth.

Published in America Magazine April 30, 2007

Leonard reading "I Dream Your Voice":





-------------------------

And these 3 are for Leonard.  I believe he would like them very much ... rest in peace.


Beginning

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.  
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moons young, trying
Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.

James Wright

Saying Good bye to MenHao-jan
at Yellow Crane Pavilion

You said goodbye at Yellow Crane Pavilion
and sailed west, down into the valley
through the flowers and the mist of spring
until your lonely sail vanished
in the blue sky's horizon.

and I was left watching the river
flowing gently into heaven

Li Po
translated by Sam Hamill

nightingale
you're growing old...
but what a voice!

                    Issa
                    translated by David G. Lanoue




best,
Don

Wednesday Haiku will return next week.

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The Sound of Water: the Closing Section

This final look at Sam Hamill's volume of haiku translations, The Sound of Water, focuses on the section entitled "Other Poets," specifically meaning everyone except Bashō, Buson, and Issa, all of whom we covered in previous posts.

To learn how to die
watch cherry blossoms, observe
chrysanthemums

Anonymous

Simple, really, yet we need to be reminded time and time again.  It is what makes haiku a way, as in a Way, if you pay attention.

Returning from a funeral
I saw this very moon
high above the moor

Kyorai

There is a bait and switch, which-shell-is-the-moon-under-quality to this poem.  Which moon, did you say?

All of them, of course.

True obedience:
silently the flowers speak
to the inner ear

Onitsura

This poem, particularly this rendition, runs quite deep.  First, true obedience to ... what?  Hamill has captured how silence speaks rather nicely, rather slyly, really.  I've seen another version, by Blyth, I believe, that mentions "the inner ear also."  Though certainly not fair to Hamill, perhaps, like the inner ear, we should be true to the poet, Onitsura.   Perhaps the also is incorrect, but if it is, there is a contrast of two different types of obedience and two different types of hearing. 

Aside from these, there was also Moritake's famed blossom returning to the branch (butterfly!) - for an animated version of that haiku, see this previous post.  I didn't much like Hamill's translation "Those falling blossoms / all return to the branch / when I watch butterflies" and, while looking for another, I stumbled on this poem, which I believe may also be by Moritake

           their moves
learned from falling petals
         butterflies 

I really love this poem; I'm gonna see if an old man can learn some moves from falling petals. Here is another version of Moritake's "falling blossom(s)"

A fallen blossom
come back to its branch?
No, a butterfly!

Moritake

That's much better.  Perhaps, the Hamill translation is of a different poem?  No way to tell, since the original is not included.


To pick a mere 3 poems to highlight of 42 seems mighty stingy, yet there you are.  I went back and read the section a couple of times - there are some lovely images and ideas, perhaps if I was in another mood, but the section ended up being slightly disappointing.  There is another poem familiar to me - perhaps this is an appropriate way to close:

Just when the sermon
has finally dirtied my ears-
the cuckoo

Shiki

That and everything else being said, though the last section is disappointing, there are so many great renditions in The Sound of Water that it is worth many more times what it's going for ($3 plus bucks) for on used book sights like abebooks.  It can be slipped in a hip or shirt pocket; Issa, Buson, Bashō, and all tend to be pretty good company in the doctor's office, or the woods, or on the bus. 

---------

This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review #127, November 2002.

Morning View From A Rainy Room

there is nothing I
must do a voice
floats warmly
by fine rain
and steam and tea hot
bath I shiver
petal on the path.

Mark Jackley

going outside
plum blossoms dive in...
my lucky tea

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue 

Google translator version: "Department included jumping out of a plum, if"

best,
Don

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Issa's Sam Hamill

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been looking at the small (literally: 4.25 x 5") collection of Sam Hamill's translations entitled The Sound of Water.  It literally fits in your back or shirt pocket and is chock-full of poems.  Though I didn't begin with a plan - oh, how rarely I do - I seem to have divided the contents into 4 posts for the purposes of review.  Two weeks ago, I covered Bashō, last week Buson, and this week it will be Issa.  Soon I hope to cover the final section of miscellaneous poets.

I've tried again to select poems that I feel very good in illustrating the poet's work, the philosophy of haiku, and adeptness of the translator.   In addition, I look for works that have not been featured previously, quite a feat when it comes to the work of this blog's namesake.  The commentary is minimal as Issa hardly needs an assist from an amateur admirer.

The spring begins: old
stupidities repeated,
new errs invented

With his admission of his own faults, Issa draws us into the fact that errors are the human condition, it is what we do, even as we hopefully begin another year (the 1st day of spring and New Years coinciding in historical Japan, coming as it did in the 1st weeks of February).

Brilliant moon,
is it true that you too
must pass in a hurry

Even the moon too must pass, both literally and figuratively; all life, animate and inanimate, shares the ultimate truth at the bottom of all great classical haiku.

What's the lord's vast wealth
to me, his millions and more?
Dew on trembling grass

Another way of saying the same thing, this time in human terms of the frailty of all attachment and craving. Whether you seek out the noble truth or no, it will most certainly find you.

Before this autumn wind
even the shadows of mountains
shudder and tremble

Issa beats the drum, softly and loudly, quickly and slowly; the image here is lovely, almost Buson-like, and resonates to the very center of the earth, and perhaps even the universe.

I wish she was here
to listen to my bitching
and enjoy this moon

Love and loss makes the human condition so full of joy, so full of sorrow - this memory is both at once, in the now of the moment.

A world of dew,
and within each dewdrop
a world of struggle

Like his more famous "The world of dew / is a world of dew - / and yet, and yet ...," this haiku cuts to the heart of things, in an even more fatalistic way, if possible. Not only is life as transient as a drop of dew, it is a constant struggle.

In the midst of this world
we stroll along the roof of hell
gawking at flowers

This is one of Issa's more famous pieces and, though this is a particularly wordy rendition, I like Hamill's choice of verbs in "stroll" and "gawking," conveying, I feel, the haphazardness, the randomness of existence.

A world of trials,
and if the cherry blossoms,
it simply blossoms

Philosophically, this is the other side of the leaf of the dewdrop poem above.   This is the lesson of Buddhism, the lesson of the classic haiku masters.  To put it even more succintly: "Blossom, fool!"

Just to say the word
home, that one word alone
so pleasantly cool

This last haiku is all the more poignant when we realize that Issa, an orphan, often felt the lack of what  home really is.  Through all his trials, however, he was able to enjoy the family he helped found, if for a brief time.    In English the word "home" has at its center the famed Sanskrit sound, the mantra of mantras. Is there a linguistic relationship?  I don't know.  Is there an aural or oral or vibrational one?  I'm thinking there is.

I've been wrong before.

--------------

This week's selection from the archive, a tanka by the fine poet Pamela Miller Ness, goes out to writers, especially poets, everywhere.  It originally appeared in Lilliput Review, #129.

Dancing Ganesha,

god with the elephant head,

lend me

your tusk dipped in ink, let me

write long, long as the Ganges

Pamela Miller Ness

autumn wind--
Issa's heart and mind
stirring

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue 

best,
Don

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Sam Hamill's Buson

 Painting by Buson

Bashō and Issa get most of the good press, Buson's work being portrayed at times as cold and aloof.  Still, compared to Shiki, Buson is downright engaged with the rest of us lowly mortals.

Last week I took a look at Sam Hamill's renderings of Bashō in his beautiful little book, The Sound of Water: Haiku by Bashō, Buson, Issa, and Other Poets.   This time round, it's the artistic, painterly Buson.

From this small selection (47) of Buson's haiku that Sam Hamill has translated, the following 5 grabbed my attention.

Utter loneliness-
another great pleasure
in autumn twilight

Here, the mutual virtue of loneliness and a lovely autumn twilight come together in a very distinctive way, calling to mind how sadness and beauty and transience all intersect in Japanese culture in the concept of wabi-sabi.

The thwack of an axe
in the heart of a thicket-
and woodpecker's tat-tats!

The comparisons and contrasts in the two essential elements of this haiku - the woodsman and the woodpecker - are really multiple.  It is not only the actions, it is the intent.  We think more of the contrast between the woodsman and the woodpecker but what they share is of greater importance.   This haiku resonates aurally, visually, and philosophically.

This cold winter night,
that old wooden-head buddha
would make a nice fire

Worthy of Issa, Buson's sentiment is known to all in need, whether of fuel, food, or love.  So easily our beliefs are put aside for our needs and right you are, as the poet said.   First and foremost here, however, is the need to laugh long and hard at ourselves.

In seasonal rain
along a nameless river
fear too has no name

It would seem that the speaker is lost, or at least in unknown territory, since the river's name isn't known.  This feeling evokes the fear itself, which is nameless because it is undifferentiated, it is irrational fear - fear of the unknown.  Lost, in an unfamiliar land, possibly in the torrential downpour of the rainy season, instinct takes over.  A most uncharacteristic haiku from a classical master.

Pure white plum blossoms
slowly begin to turn
the color of dawn

This last one is pure Buson.  How minutely observed the scene is - is dawn all one color, is the light a real color at all, or is the color of the plum blooms simply realized in the breaking light?  It would seem this haiku was done with a paint brush and not a writer's implement.

Next week, if all goes well, I'll take a peek at Hamill's Issa.

------------------------------------------

Looking back on issue #128 of Lilliput Review, I see it contained quite a few poems about mothers and death.  There is a truism to this one, by Michael Meyerhofer, that no prose may ever explain:

Her last night, my mother walked into
   the kitchen where I was standing
      and when I looked at her

I could see

the shadow of something huge
   passing over her face—

What's wrong, I asked.
I don't know, she said, and smiled.

Michael Meyerhofer

Here are two more, by two masters of another sort, the same topic:

hearing the downside
of melodic minor
mother's voice

Sheila Murphy

my dead mother--
every time I see the ocean
every time...

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Sam Hamill's Bashō

This little volume, translated with an introduction by Sam Hamill as part of Shambhala's Centaur Editions, focuses on 3 of the four major haiku poets (Bashō, Buson, and Issa), along with a handful of poems by other poets.  This post takes a look at his renderings of the haiku of Bashō

With just over 70 haiku by Bashō, this is a highly selective take on the master poet.  Many of the poems are familiar; all have a slight difference from other translations I've reviewed.  The most obvious difference is that the poems are slightly longer than most contemporary versions which, though running counter to the contemporary trend towards brevity, isn't necessarily a bad thing.  The first is briefer than most of its companions, is very unfamiliar in its presentation, and is quite good, indeed:

How very noble!
One who finds no satori
in the lightning flash

This poem is at once humorous, satirical (read biting), and serious.   The poet seems to be saying no to both obvious metaphor or easy enlightenment - notice, in English, the linguistic relationship between lightning and enlightenment.  Somehow, this seems very proscriptive, rather than descriptive, for a haiku poet.

But that's probably another reason they called him master.

This first fallen snow
is barely enough to bend
the jonquil leaves

This poem is familiar and captures a perfect moment.  The jonquil leaves are new to me, but the poem still carries its weight, literally and otherwise, very nicely.

Exhausted I sought 
a country inn, but found
wisteria in bloom

Again, a familiar Bashō poem, but in this version I get a sense that the traveler is lost and, in his confusion, has stumbled on a happy accident in this cluster wisteria.  Certainly, the lack of a roof is lamentable, but the view's not bad!  Philosophically, the contrast between lost and found, highlights what is fine in life, if you wish to embrace it.

Among moon gazers
at the ancient temple grounds
not one beautiful face

I've always liked this poem though it seems to run counter with Buddhist sentiment from one point of view.  Honesty here is the thing and the question arises: if a face is not beautiful, is it ugly?

Come out to view
the truth of flowers blooming
in poverty

This certainly is something of a radical rendering of the original which, as such, I don't remember at all.  Talk about direct pointing!   The poet tells us, here it is, the truth for you to see, despite of or because of the contrasting poverty.  This feels like a lesson of a Buddhist priest.

Kannon's tiled temple
roof floats far away in clouds
of cherry blossoms

The unstated, pervasive presence here seems to be a blustery spring breeze, causing the viewer to see the temple's roof floating amongst the swaying branches, an image worthy of Buson in its painterly quality.  Hamill adds an editorial note that Kannon is a Bodhisattva of compassion.

Overall, the collection of Bashō's haiku in The Sound of Water are honestly not my favorite renderings; there are enjambed lines, unnecessary uses of the verb to be, and lines sometimes just too long, though the ones I've cited here I do like very much, in one aspect or another.  There were a number of other fine translations here also, most so close to others I've noted recently that it seemed it would be repetitive to discuss.  The translations were fine; I just could bring nothing new to them.

----------------------------------------

Fall is upon us in a big way, suddenly full fall, not the usual easing in, the customary days of deep, beautiful, almost viscous light.  There is hope for a return of some milder days before heading to the big freeze.  This week's feature poem from Lilliput Review #129, March 2003 (which was the 1st issue highlighted when this blog began nearly 4 years ago), has in mind the deeper meaning of things our minds turn to in autumn.

Stragglers

when the geese fly away
it is always the stragglers who call to me

year after year
through the half-empty branches

I am in love
with the struggling ones

watching them pump and move
crying how little time we have left

Maureen O'Brien

a new face
in the flock...
rice field geese

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue 

best,
Don

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The Butterfly and the Moth Redux: Buson and Billy Collins

Following on the discussion of Buson and Billy Collins from this Wednesday's post, I received a very informative email from Charles Trumbull, editor of Modern Haiku. His email contained some salient information, plus variant translations of the temple bell / butterfly haiku, so I asked and received his kind permission to reprint it in full. For those who didn't read the original post, here are the two poems that were discussed:

----Butterfly
sleeping
----on the temple bell

Buson

Japan

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

Billy Collins

The gist of my musings was why Collins chose to go with "moth" rather than "butterfly," which is how most translations have it. Here's what Charlie has to say:

I read with interest your bit about the Buson haiku and Billy Collins. Here’s some background that may be of use to you.

The haiku by Buson (note, no macron over the O)

釣鐘に止りてねむる胡蝶 かな
tsurigane ni tomarite nemuru kochô kana


is indeed one of his most famous and most often translated. Harold Henderson, in his Introduction to Haiku, renders it literally as follows:

Temple-bell-on settling sleep butterfly kana


where “kana” is a kireji, a word in Japanese that governs the relationship between two parts of a sentence and here is a sort of unvoiced sigh or sotto voce “that’s so.”

Collins apparently saw the translation that was published in X.J. Kennedy’s Introduction to Poetry:

On the one-ton temple bell

On the one-ton temple bell
a moon moth, folded into sleep,
sits still


I haven’t checked my copy, but Kennedy probably got the version from someplace else. This translation is typical of early English translations of haiku, adding words and notions for their poetic values as well as unnecessary titles.

Neither my Japanese nor my Japanese dictionary are good enough for me to know the exact meaning of “kochô,” the name used by Buson for the insect. “Butterfly” is more commonly “chôcho,” while “moth” is “ga.”

Here is a handful of other translations, with translator and published source:


Silence

A frail white butterfly, beneath the spell
Of noon, is sleeping on the huge bronze bell

Harold Stewart
Stewart, Net of Fireflies, 52

Asleep in the sun
on the temple’s silent bronze
bell, a butterfly

Behn, Harry
Behn, Cricket Songs


Butterfly
sleeping
on the temple bell.

Robert Hass
Hass, Essential Haiku (1994), 108


Butterfly asleep
Folded soft on temple bell …
Then bronze gong rang!

Beilenson, Peter
Japanese Haiku (1955); Haiku Garland (1968); Little Treasury (1980)


Clinging to the bell
he dozes so peacefully
this new butterfly

Sam Hamill
Hamill, trans, Sound of Water; Hamill, trans, Little Book of Haiku, 61

on a temple bell
alighted and sleeping
this butterfly

William J. Higginson
Modern Haiku 35:2 (summer 2004), 52 (a)


On the great temple bell
stopped from flight and sleeping
the small butterfly

Miner, Earl
Miner, Japanese Linked Poetry; Bowers, Classic Tradition


On the hanging bell,
staying while he sleeps,
a butterfly!

Sawa Yuki and Edith Marcombe Shiffert
Haiku Master Buson


On the temple bell
has settled, and is fast asleep,
a butterfly.

Harold G. Henderson
Henderson, Introduction; Modern Haiku 4:3 (1973), 51 (a); Frogpond 14:2 (summer 1991), 31 (a)


On the temple bell
Something rests in quiet sleep.
Look, a butterfly!

Buchanan, Daniel C.
Buchanan, One Hundred Famous Haiku (1973), 65


On the temple bell,
Settled down and fast asleep
A butterfly.

Harold G. Henderson
Henderson, Introduction; Modern Haiku 3:2 (1972), 26 (a)


On the temple’s great
Bronze bell, a butterfly sleeps
In the noon sun

Beilenson, Peter, and Harry Behn
Haiku Harvest


Perched upon the temple-bell, the butterfly sleeps!
Hearn, Lafcadio
Hearn, Kwaidan


The buttefly
Resting upon the temple bell,
Asleep.

R.H. Blyth
Blyth, Haiku II—Spring, 258



Best,

Charlie

I checked my copy of Introduction to Poetry by Kennedy and, coincidentally, Buson and Collins are listed next to each other alphabetically in the "Lives of the Poets" section. The translation is Kennedy's own, though he has another poem by Buson translated by Robert Hass. In two romanized Japanese/English dictionaries I checked at the library, kochô was listed as butterfly, but I'll defer to Charlie since I also found chôcho listed as butterfly in a third.

So, though the mystery still remains, we've ended up with a wealth of useful information and a wonderful selection of different ways Buson's poem has been translated. I was particularly thrilled to see a beautiful version by Lafcadio Hearn, the subject of a post here recently, and a typically taciturn, precise version by R. H. Blyth.

Many, many thanks to Charles Trumbull for all the great information and the various translations. Only one question remains:

Will we wake up before the big bell rings?


best,
Don

Chad Sweeney's 33 Translations Basho's Frog Plus 30 Classic Versions

What better way to face another Friday than with infinite variations of Basho's famed frog / splash poem? Chad Sweeney has delivered 33 highly interpretative versions of the same. How else does one explain pear trees and dragons and mathematical equations from one teeny little poem?

Take a look see at his 33 "translations."

If you need something more down-to-earth, here is the original poem, plus 30 more traditional translations from all the heavy hitters, provided by the Bureau of Public Secrets: Cid Corman, William J. Higginson, D. T. Suzuki, Lafcadio Hearn, Alan Watts, R. H. Blyth, Kenneth Rexroth, Harold Henderson, Donald Keene, Ginsberg, Stryk, Hass ... I could go on and on.

Ed Baker has supplied a few previously to this blog in the comments section of a previous post (just toggle down to see) and I have a feeling he may have a few more to share.

My favorite of Mr. Sweeney's?

thesis
antithesis
--------synthesis

And my favorite of the 30 "classic" translations? Well, I can't really decide, most of the variations are so very close. I like Sam Hamill's

At the ancient pond
a frog plunges into
the sound of water

And in the "slightly different" category there is Dick Bakken's

dark old pond
:
a frog plunks in

As a minimalist's minimalist publisher, how could I not love James Kirkup's 3 word extravaganza?

pond
---frog
------plop!

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the version of Ross Figgins, a poet I've had the pleasure to publish in the past in Lilliput. His version has a nice little twist (back one-and-a-half somersaults, tuck, Mr. Frog?):

old pond
a frog leaps in —
a moment after, silence

best,
Don

Basho and the Lightness of Death

This past week, I've completed reading The Essential Basho, translated by Sam Hamill. The four travel journals were interesting, as mentioned in the section quoted in last week's post. I was happy to move on to the selection of haiku, which takes up approximately half the book, three haiku per page.

I've begun to warm up to Basho's poems which focus on a poetic principle he called "lightness." Here is David Landis Barnhill, whose Basho's Haiku I'm currently reading, on the concept of "lightness":

The concept of sabi can be intertwined with many aspects of the Japanese, Buddhism, and poetry. There is a principle of lightness that can be found within these aspects. Lightness can be described as the beauty of things plain and ordinary against the bright and glorified beauty. It is seeing the beauty in the simplicity of things, rather than the elaborate. Ueda describes the principle of lightness as, “a dialectic transcendence of sabi” (Matsuo Basho 34), then goes on to relate lightness to sabi by saying, “Sabi urges man to detach himself from worldly involvements; “lightness” makes it possible for him, after attaining that detachment, to return to the mundane world” (Matsuo Basho 34). He makes a great point in showing how the two ideas work off of each other. It is sabi that the person is trying to sense, what they are clearing there mind for. It takes mental concentration to detach oneself from the everyday reality of the layperson. Once that detachment is achieved, there must be a point when it is allowed to dissipate so that one can return to the ordinary world. And it is this principle of lightness that brings the person back, by having them focus on the plain, simple, and ordinary for all of its beauty.

Here are a selection of the 28 haiku I marked for further review:



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Like the buck's antler's,
we point in slightly different
directions, my friend

You weren't home when I came-
even the plum blossoms were
in another yard

In windblown spring rain,
budding, like a straw raincoat,
a river willow

Grass for a pillow,
the traveler knows best
how to see cherry blossoms

Father and mother,
long gone, suddenly return
in the pheasant's cry.

At the ancient pond
a frog plunges into
the sound of water

Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggest they
are about to die

Wrapping dumplings in
bamboo leaves, with one finger,
she tidies her hair.

The morning glories
ignore our drinking party
and burst into bloom

-----------------------------------------------------------


I'm not sure that the poems that appeal to me are the ones for which Basho is most appreciated, though his most famous haiku ("At the ancient pond") is included in this selection, primarily because I thought it was one of the best versions I've read. One of the comments at the first Basho post noted that Hamill wasn't a favorite translator and he does seem to have taken some liberties, ironically ones that I feel make Basho more accessible to someone like me who is certainly no expert. In the "buck's antler's" haiku I particularly like that, though pointed in slightly different directions, these friends ultimately will always end up in the same place. "plum blossoms" somehow seems to be ironic, funny and heartbreaking all at once: try doing that with 14 words sometime! "strawcoat" is quite literal because Basho was always on the road and, one would imagine, frequently taking advantage of all available "strawcoats." There also seems to be a joy here at the return of his "strawcoat" in spring which he no doubt sorely missed in winter. Of course the traveler "knows best" how to see cherry blossoms: lying under the tree. Beside the principle of lightness, Basho seems to leave much room in each haiku for the individual reader to participate in its writing, in a sense. "Father and mother" is a pure Proustian moment and I love it because it has the emotion so characteristic of Issa and not often on such overt display with Basho. "cicadas" may seem obvious, though the point can never be emphasized enough. Still, it called to mind for me a review I was reading this week of a book about human psychology and how our species is the only one which understands its coming death. Perhaps that review tainted my reading but one can't help feeling that he is not only saying that cicadas don't know death and he is commenting on the human condition. How simply beautiful is "Wrapping dumplings ...", pure essence. If one of the Imagist school had written this, they would be immortal. Finally, morning glories are my favorite flower and I've been known to quaff a pint or two, so I personally can attest to the truism of this little gem.

Cover art by Wayne Hogan

This week's featured back issue of Lilliput Review is #159, from November 2007. Enjoy.



-----------------------------------------------------

#64
You are dreaming
of the bush warbler
I said to him defiantly
But just in case I lifted
The green curtain and peeked out.

Yosano Akiko
translated by Dennis Maloney

Translation
Wearing down like a rock
in the years of a river
a poem

Donny Smith

#12
Poet, sing of this night
Alive with lights and
The wine we served.
Our beauty pales
Compared with the peony.

Yosano Akiko
translated by Dennis Maloney

Mown Hay
Just to the southwest they're
cutting hay in the closing light.
I wonder how my life could come to this.

Jeffrey Skeate

It was like stardust in an old hand undertook me
coming through from where my soul began.

Janet Baker

----------------------------------------------------


There are now over 60 issues in the Back Issue Archive and 138 suggestions in the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list.

I've got to stop all this friggin' counting.

till next time,
Don

Basho: an "On The Road" Original

In preparation for a new project (& in a desperate attempt to flee the horrible poetry books I've encountered of late), I picked up The Essential Basho, translated by Sam Hamill, from my overburdened bookshelf.

What a revelation! And it ain't necessarily the poems.

I've never warmed up to Basho as I have the other big four classic haiku writers, such as Issa, and have often wondered why. Picking around that overburdened shelf, I found the following concerning the "big four" originals by another original, haiku guru R. H. Blyth:

Bashô is a religious man, Buson the artist, Issa the humanist. Bashô is concerned with God as he sees himself in the mind of the poet before flowers and fields. Buson deals with things as they exist by and for themselves, in their own right. Issa is concerned with man, man the weak angel; with birds and beasts as they struggle like us to make a living and keep their heads above water. If we do not begin with Bashô, our interpretation of haiku is bound to lack depth. The objectivity of Buson and the subjectivity of Issa both spring from the homely little man with long eyebrows and a bad digestion.

Fair enough, as seen through the lens of Blyth's own lyrical propensity. He has left Shiki out of the discussion: he barely allowed him in to begin with, but that's for another time. I've yet to really connect with Basho's poems and this may begin to explain why. Don't get me wrong - there are some stunners:

Summer grasses:
all that remains of great soldiers'
imperial dreams.

Read this in light of, say, Isaiah's "All flesh is grass" and, for that matter basic physics and you get his drift. Religious and real: very powerful stuff, to paraphrase Master Elwood.

Still, there was a lot less of this and a lot of what to my crass western decidedly over-stimulated sensibilities was some fairly plain stuff. I read Hamill's translation of Narrow Road to the Interior and Travelogue of Weather-Beaten Bones and had enjoyed them and then I began The Knapsack Notebook and ran smack into this:

Within this temporal body composed of a hundred bones and nine holes there resides a spirit which, for lack of an adequate name, I think of as windblown. Like delicate drapery, it may be torn away and blown off by the least breeze. It brought me to writing poetry many years ago, initially for its own gratification, but eventually as a way of life. True, frustration and rejections were almost enough to bring this spirit to silence, and sometimes pride brought it to the brink of vanity. From the writing of the very first line, it has found no contentment as it was torn by one doubt after another. This windblown spirit considered the security of court life at one point; at another, it considered risking a display of its ignorance by becoming a scholar. But its passion for poetry would not permit either. Since it knows no other way than poetry, it has clung to it tenaciously.

My suggestion would be to use this paragraph in the prefatory material for the new Poet's Market as a guide to the "business" of poetry. This is how to get yourself published, friends.


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For those who have been following the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list as it expands, all 127 listings have now been hypertexted to relevant material on the web, in most cases each entry has two links, one for poet and one for title. The links variously provide biographical material, sample poems, interviews, audio, video and all matter of related items. This is an open ended project, so if you have suggestions, send them along and I'll send you the two latest issues of Lilliput Review (or extend your subscription by 2 issues).

Lots of work, lots of fun.

best,
Don